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So, I played a JCA100 tonight...


nwright

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And I thought it sucked ass...If one was to play one of these amps for metal or heavier tones, what kind of setting would you go for?

 

I played it through a 1960 4x12 (stock T75's) and one of my Diezel 4x12 (Vintage 30's).

 

the mids were stuffy and boxy, not much in terms of balls or low end and the presence past halfway was irritating.

 

Also, aside from the presence and treble, the bass and mids knobs didn't do much...not a lot of variety in their sweep.

 

I tried boosting it and it was a lot better for brootz, obviously, and it changed the nature of the mids a bit, but they were still boxy.

 

Severely let down.

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And I thought it sucked ass...If one was to play one of these amps for metal or heavier tones, what kind of setting would you go for?


I played it through a 1960 4x12 (stock T75's) and one of my Diezel 4x12 (Vintage 30's).


the mids were stuffy and boxy, not much in terms of balls or low end and the presence past halfway was irritating.


Also, aside from the presence and treble, the bass and mids knobs didn't do much...not a lot of variety in their sweep.


I tried boosting it and it was a lot better for brootz, obviously, and it changed the nature of the mids a bit, but they were still boxy.


Severely let down.

 

 

first thing I thought was, "He's gonna hate it."

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LOL, you were soooo right.

 

I saw it sitting in the tracking room at the studio/rehearsal place we practice at. The dude that owns the studio saw me eyeing it, as it was new. I guess it is his guitar players in his own band. He said he didn't dig it that much, it just didn't sound good to him.

 

I thought I'd try to prove him wrong and he said I could try it out. We hooked it up and messed with it for about 30 minutes and couldn't find anything that I liked. I liked the cleans and slightly dirty stuff and that was about it. We were running the masters anywhere from 1-2 up to halfway (12:00)...just kinda gross tone to my ears.

 

We fired up my 5150 III and it was like night and day in terms of thickness. The JCA didn't have as much fizz as the fitty III, but I kinda expected that.

 

TBH, I haven't heard ANY JCA clips I liked...at all...But I thought for sure I'd dig one if I played it.

 

 

Nope...

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:idk: Matter of taste, I guess.

 

Personally, the only tones I don't like out of the JCA is if you've got the bass set too high. It's the only amp I've ever played that I really understand what some of y'all mean about being too "flubby". It just sounds weird if it's putting out too much low end.

Thankfully, mine has depth mod, and I always keep my bass below 11:00.

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I traded mine because of the lack of low end and general thickness. It was ok, but sounded like a tin can compared to my 5150 and Laney AOR 50. I liked playing on it in the bedroom, but with the band , it just lacked a little to me. I put a 10 band eq in the loop and that helped, but still just seemed to be a tad thin for me. I am picking up a 22h this weekend for bedroom jamming.

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I didn't just play heavy stuff on it. Actually, I played "brootz" the least - because it obviously (to me) wasn't geared towards that after a few seconds of trying.

But even for anything else, I just wasn't impressed.

It was probably the most uninspired amp I've played. No character, no personality, just stuffy, boxy mids and that's about it. Clean and slightly overdriven was nice, but anything on the overdrive channel with the pre gain set past 11:00 I didn't like at all. And the limited range of change between the bass and mid controls didn't help.

I've played an SLO before and this was not at all like the slo I played...I realize this isn't an SLO clone per se, but for me the Soldano "touch" wasn't there, lol. I dunno, I had high hopes I guess.

To me I think a Fender type guitar would work better over something like an LP with those boxy mids and kinda muddy low mids.

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I used mine a lot for a few different projects. I loved it, but I had some mods done to it and a great tube combination. Only sold it because my 2203 just plain rules all.

 

Honestly, i don't get how someone could just outright hate that amp.

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That's an odd statement. I outright hate some people. An amp should face that same scrutiny.


Lol

 

 

People are complicated. An amps tone is not. Just don't hear many people not liking them. They are a fairly standard sounding amp.

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I played the 50 watt and thought it sounded thick and chewy



Chewy. Great descriptor! What the {censored} does that mean? :confused:


My 50 is stock as can be and it sits really well in a band mix. No real way to describe a sound, other than it isn't thin (all highs with no balls). I run the gain around 6-8 usually and it's pretty heavy - drop it back to around noon for radio-rock stuff.

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You're comparing more of a classic-gain toned amp vs. modern voiced high gainers.


What were you expecting?



That's a fair way of putting it. I will admit my JCA100H doesn't do straight up metal all too well, but for modern rock and even a little classic rock it certainly shines. This is one amp I won't let go of, even though I was close about a month ago.


Oh, and guys, stop comparing it to an SLO :cop:

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That's a fair way of putting it. I will admit my JCA100H doesn't do straight up metal all
too
well, but for modern rock and even a little classic rock it certainly shines. This is one amp I won't let go of, even though I was close about a month ago.



Oh, and guys, stop comparing it to an SLO
:cop:

 

I only threw up the SLO comment because I've seen it numerous times when talking about these amps.

 

Maybe I was just expecting more...For the price, I guess it'd be alright, maybe...And tone is subjective...But to me there was just no weight to the tone...No balls.

 

I could see it standing up in a mix, though. Just not my taste.

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